I can’t decide whether you are very creative or just plain out crazy. I lean toward the
former but I would love to really understand fully the method behind the madness and I
kind of do, in places, but not everywhere enough to really grasp how things fit together,
activities and objectives, for example, or, objectives as they are developed here with the
goals. The idea of Doubtfire as character and character as it is intertwined with illusion
(issues of mind as it interacts with matter to develop notions of reality) is an interesting
and very abstract notion to foist on 7th graders, but, done properly, WHAT FUN and what
an interesting set of concepts with which to play. Go through this set of materials and
play with each element and explain those elements to yourself as you would to another
who may benefit from understanding and, I think, you will figure out more about how
exactly to pull this off.
Greg Spriggs
Lesson: Character Development with Mrs. Doubtfire
Grade: 7 grade English
Lesson Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes
Description
This lesson incorporates the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire into the language arts field by
analyzing the acting abilities of Robin Williams. In Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams
looses his family and then reunites with them by going in disguise as a sixty-year old
woman. Through the use of a body suit, wig, mask, and accent, the entire San Francisco
community is fooled into thinking that a Mrs. Doubtfire is a real person. Having students
analyze the character impressions of Robin Williams’ characters and Mrs. Doubtfire,
students can see how crucial it is for writers to develop their own characters in literatures.
Relationship to Illusion Unit
Since this unit focuses on the concept of illusion, character development would be a good
component of a lesson plan to incorporate. Many fiction stories consist of imaginary
characters with humanistic qualities that try to dissolve the border between our real life
and their created world. Mrs. Doubtfire’s character creates this similar effect by existing
in the real world and then, when being unmasked at the dining room table, Mrs. Doubtfire
disappears leaving a void within the Hillard household.
Rationale
There are three important reasons for incorporating this piece of art into the classroom.
Primarily, students are able to understand character development much easier. Within the
movie, we see how crucial the development of a character is within a movie. When
Robin William’s character, Mr. Hillard, goes through the transformation and turns into
Mrs. Doubtfire, we see how crucial every detail is. The creation of the mask, the fake
teeth, and the wig and are essential components of Mrs. Doubtfire. If even one
component is left out, the character is lacking and does not make a solid character. The
same concept goes with literature as well, which will be evident in the exercise discussed
later on. For literature to be believable, all components need to be there including:
physical characteristics, voice and dialogue, and actions the character makes. The second
point in incorporating this movie is how his voice impersonations can be a focal point for
starting character development. In the employment office, Mr. Hillard, “do[es] voices”
which are very believable. However, without the proper details of costume and make-up
they fall into the unbelievable component of character development. For students to see
this part within the movie as well, will show them how important it is to fully develop a
character’s voice and dialogue. The final reason to keep this movie in this unit would be
to show the importance of setting and genre within a character’s environment. The
movie itself is portrayed in a comedy genre, which makes the motive of Mr. Hillard’s
transformation heart-warming and cheerful. However if the movie were portrayed as a
thriller or horror film, we would see Mrs. Doubtfire as a psychopath that wants to get
near the children by cross-dressing. The environment the character is set up in is crucial
for any character in literature for the environment can shape the character is unusual
ways.
The Students
This movie can be used in almost all secondary education classrooms due to the parental
rating of PG, the use of comedy by Robin Williams, and the detailed intricacies of the
plot. However, I do believe that seventh graders would understand and have the ability to
reiterate the components of character development and situational irony back to the
teacher. When I observed seventh graders in my practicum experience last year, all of
the students had to take the MAP test within Douglas County. A portion of the
vocabulary used in the test included terms such as irony, satire, alliteration, allegory, and
fables. Since these vocabulary words needed to be mastered for seventh graders to excel
in the test, I think Mrs. Doubtfire would be a perfect movie to use for situational irony,
puns, metaphors, and similes are all used in the comedy of Robin Williams. This movie
would also relate to seventh grade students for Mr. Hillard’s children are roughly the
same age group and share similar characteristics with the teenage girl and boy. This will
also make them more engaged within the movie for a lot of the comedy is at most seventh
grade student’s understanding. The final reason why students would prefer to watch this
movie is because a majority of students that enter into the classroom are motivated or
engaged visually. Since a majority of communication now is through the use of a
websites and email, students are forced to sit down in front of a computer screen and
watch others communicate. This style of visual communication makes students want to
become more motivated visually than using other modes of communication such as
listening, speaking, or writing.
Description of Goals and Objectives
Goal #1: Each student will understand how setting, voice and dialogue, and physical
details are essential to determine how believable a character is within any form of
literature or art.
Goal #2: Each student will understand how our own judgments of characters, in any form
of literature, are a factor in choosing our favorite books, movies, television shows, etc.
Objective #1: After completing a note-taker of character development while watching the
video, students will demonstrate their ability to understand the importance of character
development by using their note-taker as a guide to create imaginary characters in the
classroom.
Both of these goals are linked directly to the objective because the note-taker helps
students identify the importance of setting, voice and dialogue, and physical details.
Then as students create models of selected fictional characters they must incorporate all
these components of character development to make them believable. Then as students
vote on their favorite sculptures in class, they understand how their judgments influence
their perception of characters within any piece of literature.
How the Work Itself Gets Incorporated into the Goals and Objectives
Through the use of comedy by Robin Williams and since students are generally visuallymotivated learners, teachers are able to sneak in relevant material to help benefit
student’s learning in the language arts content area. After the movie and note-taker,
students are then given papier-mâché models in groups. Then students are given fake
character biographies written by the teacher that have many context clues, regarding
clothing style, physical details, and setting. Students, from the context clues, must create
a model of the character to show that they can find the context clues and understanding
the importance of character development. There will be materials provided in class to
decorate models such as: construction paper, colored cloth pieces, stickers for all facial
expressions, etc. Then as a class the teacher will go over all the biographies underlining
all the context clues to character development. Then students will vote on a sculpture
they believe fits the character biography the most.
Assessment
The first objective and the activity are based on understanding the importance of
character development. The note-taker aids the student in understanding the structure of
character development while the sculptures created in class acts upon the note-taker
making the students physically engaged with the work. The voting concept connects
back to goal number two. In this case the students determine how authentic the sculpture
is towards the character biographies. The more votes on a sculpture, the more reliable the
character could be within a story. Since this is hard to assess as an objective. This
project should be a completion grade. Since artistry is very subjective, students should be
assessed only on how well they followed the context clues within the biographies. As an
extra incentive, I would probably award extra credit for the students who created the
three most popular sculptures in class.
Problems
Only when teachers experiment with these lesson plans in the classroom, can true
problems arise. However, here are some instances where some potential obstacles in the
lesson plan can hinder students.
Technology- If the DVD or VCR play fails to play the movie, I can utilize a laptop from
the school library and link that to a video projector, that I own, onto the overhead screen.
Note-taker- If students are confused on how to fill out the paper, I will model out how
and then throughout the movie comment on character development scenes that are
important.
Sculpture-If I needed one more, I would make the groups slightly larger than normal and
then try to find a sculpture for next class, if possible.
Sculpture #2- If the pieces of the sculptures fell off I would have super glue on hand, pull
out the spare sculpture, or have extra spare parts to glue on.